Govt aims to forge MoU with S'pore on migrant workers

The government says it is working on an agreement with Singapore to ensure better placement and protection of Indonesian migrant workers in the island state.

“Indonesian migrant workers are understood to be beneficial for both countries. Therefore in placing workers in Singapore it is only right that there is a commitment between the two countries to improve the protection and prosperity of workers,” Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said Friday as quoted by tribunnews.com.

Muhaimin added that the Singaporean government had agreed to broaden the job opportunities available in the formal sector for Indonesian workers, who now number in the tens of thousands.

Muhaimin added that Indonesian workers could fill job vacancies in the fields of electronics, manufacturing, manufactured product design, technical and aeronautical engineering, biomedical, environmental technology, energy and water, as well as tourism and health.

“Jobs in the formal sector [could be] a solution to improve the prosperity of Indonesian migrant workers abroad,” he said.

From April 2007 to April 2010, almost 635,000 Indonesian workers were registered as domestic workers in Singapore, which resulted in many migrant cases that needed to be addressed by the two countries.